INDIANAPOLIS — A day after formally resigning from his position as coach/general manager of the Sky for an assistant coaching position on the front of the bench with the Raptors, James Wade was still talking about the team as though he was part of it.
“We built a culture here,” Wade told the Sun-Times on Sunday. “And we were still building.”
Not even halfway through the rebuilding season that Wade led the Sky (8-9) into, his construction efforts have stopped. The steps that had yet to be taken contributed to Wade’s decision to leave the Sky after 4½ seasons being “the hardest of [his] life.”
While Wade’s exit was abrupt, it didn’t come as a complete surprise to Sky players.
Three-time All-Star Kahleah Copper told the Sun-Times she knew Wade would resign ahead of his announcement to the team Saturday afternoon. Forward Alanna Smith expressed that players had an idea.
“We found out formally yesterday,” Smith said. “But I guess when big decisions are going down and stuff, there’s a vibe.”
Wade said he had never strongly considered coaching in the NBA until this opportunity arose. He didn’t provide a timeline of when discussions with the Raptors began but said he was approached recently and received the Sky’s approval to pursue it. During conversations with the Raptors’ front office and coach Darko Rajakovic, he was sold on what he could bring to the organization and how it could further his career.
“It wasn’t about money,” Wade said. “It was an opportunity to coach on a level where I can further myself as a coach. At the same time, I can still be an advocate for the women’s game.”
Wade also has a relationship with Raptors president Masai Ujiri dating to when the Sky hired Wade before the 2019 season.
“He was gracious enough to give me his number and spend some time with me on the phone and explain the ins and outs of being an executive,” Wade said. “Those conversations helped guide me to the thought process that I think with now.”
Wade affirmed that his decision was in no way shaped by a concern that he could potentially lose his job at the end of the season. He expressed confidence in his relationship with Sky principal owner Michael Alter, saying he had ownership’s full support in his handling of the team as coach and general manager.
Wade’s exit leaves the Sky in a precarious situation. While he helped the franchise raise its first WNBA championship banner, he also contributed to the exodus of the team’s championship players.
Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley are among the stars who opted not to re-sign after the team’s 2022 title-defending season. The decisions he made as general manager that followed — including trading away two first-round draft picks for guard Marina Mabrey — are the franchise’s to clean up.
Wade expressed confidence in the position in which he left the Sky, citing Copper as a franchise player the team can build around. But the 2021 Finals MVP is in the last year of the two-year deal Wade sold her on signing after the Sky’s championship season.
Entering the Sky’s game Sunday against the Fever — the team’s first without Wade — Copper was business as usual. She appeared to be moving with such a high level of focus that if she paused for even a second, the blinders she was wearing would be forced off, requiring her to acknowledge the magnitude of Wade’s exit.
As she walked back to the locker room and sat on the training table to get treatment, she smiled, but not in a joyful way. Her half grin looked to be that of an individual who, after enduring the exits of her championship teammates one by one, had no real emotion left to give when her coach/general manager left, too.
The entire team has expressed genuine happiness for Wade, and Copper echoed those sentiments.
But does that mean there are no hard feelings about Wade’s early exit?
“What are hard feelings?” Copper responded to the Sun-Times. “What feelings, what are feelings?”
It appears Copper is still figuring out how to process being the last remaining key contributor from a title team that 10 months ago was trying to go back-to-back.
